The present invention relates generally to the field of electronic mail, and more particularly to recipient-specific electronic message content.
Electronic mail, or emails, are digital messages that are exchanged between a sender and one or more recipients. The emails are transferred between devices connected over a network, such as the Internet. Email programs that allow a user to access and manage the user's emails operate on a client-server model whereby messages are sent to and stored in a networked server for the recipient, thereby allowing for non-real time correspondence between the sender and the recipient.
It is often desirable for the sender of an email to privately explain, clarify, or otherwise communicate with a particular recipient of the email without the other recipients of the email having access to the explanation or clarification. Certain email programs allow for the sending of private content with an email by encrypting the private message, where the private message is embedded in the common content of the email, and later decrypting the private content when the email is received through extra client-server communication. For example, a recipient of private content may insert an encryption key, which would be sent to the recipient in a separate communication either before or after receiving the email.